About a month ago, Xutos posted on Facebook that the first tour dates for 2011 are out. I checked them – maybe I could plan my summer vacation around a concert again? First date: Zürich. Zürich?!? Waaah!

OK, actually it was Bülach, but if you’re 2000 km away, that’s probably the same. =;-) I dug out my Portuguese, managed to arrange a ticket, and started looking forward. At the same time wondering what that would be… I mean, Xutos in Switzerland?! Who will go see them there? Sure, the Portuguese that live in the area, ’cause I doubt that any Swiss or German people have heard about Xutos (except for a handful that has lived in Portugal, maybe). So a concert in front of 200 people would be quite cool, right? But then – why do they use a venue that can take 2000 people?!

So I really didn’t have a clue what to expect. When I arrived, I was surprised to see so many cars and people around. And as soon as I went inside, I was completely flashed… Portuguese everywhere! Everyone who worked there was Portuguese (and spoke Portuguese of course), and the hall was filled (and I mean filled – ok, maybe not crammed, but definitely not empty!) with Portuguese people. I didn’t hear a single person speak German – ok, except for the guy at the box office who helped me translate, because hell… I need a few days to get used to Portuguese again. *g* However, I understood most of what was happening around me, and I just LOVED the atmosphere. Little Portugal, somewhere in Switzerland… I had no clue that so many Portuguese are living abroad… =:-)

Anyway, this was really a “happening”. Lots of Portuguese advertising stands, soccer transmission in the foyer, Portuguese food, … DJs were warming up the crowd, and by a quarter to midnight, Xutos finally came on!

I can’t come up with the setlist now, but it was a nice mixture of new and old songs. And this time, I actually knew the new songs as well – guess my visit to Worten payed off. *g* Hardly knew any lyrics though… *sigh* I definitely got some work to do there before the concert in Luxembourg…!

The atmosphere was great! In the beginning, however, it was a bit quiet, especially during the new songs (which isn’t unusual, of course). But as soon as they were playing one of their “hits”, the crowd would go crazy. “Não sou o único” – waah, that was amazing! Everyone was going nuts, and hey, that is the first Portuguese song I ever listened to. And I still remember the lyrics, yay! And this time they even played “Vida malvada”, which I had dearly missed last year in Évora… =:-D

I didn’t get much of the talk between the songs, but they didn’t really talk that much anyway. Instead, we got a lot of songs and almost two hours of concert! And the later the concert, the more enthusiastic the audience. Just terrific – I loved every second of it. And I think Xutos enjoyed it quite a bit as well, even though I had the feeling that they had to “work” quite a bit in the beginning to get the crowd excited. But they definitely managed that… =:-)

So now there’s no doubt that I’ll get on my way to Luxembourg as well – but I guess I’ll really need to study the lyrics (it’s so stupid to be at a concert if you can’t sing along… *grr*), and I guess I should also practice my Portuguese a bit until then… or how else am I gonna survive if I have the choice between Portuguese and _French_?!?